The Old Stone Schoolhouse on the Shirleysburg Road

Charles Howard Welch opened the schools chapter of his 1909 history of Mount Union with a building few people then living could remember, the old stone schoolhouse. It stood along the public road to Shirleysburg, to the rear of where the Methodist church or Dr. Culver's residence stood in his day. Welch says John Querry of Hares Valley built it in the fall of 1839, that it belonged to the township, and that a fire destroyed it about 1861. J. Simpson Africa's 1883 county history had already described it as "the pioneer school-house" at what is now Mount Union, "a stone structure, built in 1839."

Both books name a man called Cooper as its first teacher and Walter Galbraith as one who came after him. Welch had it from E. K. Rogers, who went to school there and still lived in town in 1909. Welch also names Thomas Askins, George McLaughlin and Thomas Pollock among the teachers, and Africa says McLaughlin taught the school in the winter of 1842 to 1843 in "the then new school-house."

The building served more than the school. Africa says the Rev. Briton E. Collins began as early as 1845 to preach occasionally in a stone schoolhouse near and behind the site where the Methodist church later stood. The Methodists outgrew "the old school-house" and built their first house of worship in 1850. In September 1854 the sheriff's election notice in the Huntingdon Journal told voters of an election district to vote in "the public school house in Mount Union," though it does not describe the building.

The year is not settled. On the same page that gives 1839, Africa says the Rev. Jacob Gruber preached the first Methodist sermon in town in 1838 "in the old stone school-house, then standing," and Welch repeats it. If both mean this building, both years cannot be right, and we have not found a record that settles it.

Rogers adds another wrinkle. He told Welch that a school had been held in 1838, in charge of a Mr. Cooper, in a log house near what is now Allenport, which his family moved into in 1840. His family had come to Mount Union in the fall of 1839, so he was speaking of a time before they arrived, and we cannot say whether that was the same Cooper. Africa's word "pioneer" and Welch's "second school house" for the next building both treat the stone schoolhouse as the first, but that log house school leaves the question open.

Welch's sketch of Rogers adds an ending. It says Rogers tore down the old stone schoolhouse, which stood near the alley, and used the stone to build the wall for his house. Rogers bought his lot in 1858 and moved into the house in 1860, and Welch does not say when the stone came down or how that fits with the fire.

Welch calls the next building "the second school house in Mount Union." It was built just east of a house on east Shirley Street that had been the Presbyterian church, and it served until 1870. The building after it went up in 1871, on Market Street by Africa's account, with four rooms. Two were used at first, and it was about 1881 before all four were in use. After two additions it had ten rooms by 1909 and about 470 pupils. Welch says the first school board, chosen in 1867, was P. M. Bare, Samuel Miller, J. W. Shaver, W. P. McLaughlin, Peter Shaver and A. F. Hamer, and Africa's list of school directors opens with the same six names in that year.

Checked 2026-11-01 · Primary sources and the Pennsylvania Newspaper Archive

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